Severe Weather

PHOTOS: Salinas homicide spree - Victims, suspects and crime scenes

A registered child sex offender, Donald Wayne Crisp, was shot outside his Salinas house and died the next day at a trauma center. Crisp, 58, was shot multiple times at 10:35 a.m. Aug. 12 in his driveway on the 400 block of Hyland Drive.

Crisp was convicted of committing sex crimes against children under 14 years old, including rape by force, sodomy, and oral copulation. Deputies are not saying if his slaying was a case of vigilante justice, but they did classify the case as a homicide.

On Aug. 10, 18-year-old Alfredo Velasco was shot to death at the intersection of Eucalyptus Drive and Parkway Road.

Janneli Garcia was shot inside a motel room at Willow Lodge across the street from Salinas High School on July 28 at 8 a.m. Someone then set the room on fire and burned her body.

Garcia was a young mother and graduated from Everett Alvarez High School in 2008. No suspects have been arrested in her death.

Garcia changed her Facebook profile photo to this photo a few hours before she was shot, set on fire, and died in a motel room on July 28.

On July 25, she wrote on Facebook, "It's hard to accept, but you can't change the past. You can't go back and manipulate things to the way you wanted them to happen. Because life’s be meaningless and boring and just not worth living. But you can change the future and that's a beautiful thing about life. Yes, you will make mistakes. And yes, you will have bad days - but as long as you let the past go, you'll have such a gorgeous and bright future ahead of you. Knowing that things were meant to happen. Knowing that each day you will learn something so that you keep growing to be a better person."

A brawl broke out here between two groups inside Tacos Choice restaurant at 624 Williams Road on Aug. 5. When the fight spilled outside into a parking lot, a man began firing into the crowd and killed three victims.

Four more victims were treated at local hospitals for non-life-threatening injuries. The Central Coast does not have a trauma center and helicopters could not fly any victims to trauma centers in the Bay Area because it was too foggy to fly.

Giovanni Pacheco, 21, was booked into jail on three counts of murder and four counts of attempted murder. Police believe he opened fire during a brawl at Tacos Choice restaurant on Williams Road in Salinas on Aug. 5 and killed three.

Antonio Vasquez was working as a DJ inside the taco restaurant when the triple homicide happened. He hid with eight other people behind his DJ booth to escape from the shooter.

"I feel scared because people come here to have a good time. When you see something like this, you get sad," Vasquez said.

Blood and memorial candles are seen on Parkside Drive where Ruben Francisco, 23, was killed by two gunmen Aug. 4.

On Aug. 4, Ruben Francisco, 23, was killed by two gunmen outside this apartment building on Parkside Drive. Family members said Ruben Francisco had only been in Salinas for 15 days and he had no gang affiliations. A cousin said Francisco lives in Mexico and was in Salinas Sunday because he was visiting his parents.

Francisco owned a website design company in Mexico and he did not like Salinas, his cousin said.

A security guard, 57-year-old Victor Sosa, was slain during a botched robbery attempt at a 99 cent store in Salinas Aug. 1. Shoppers tried to stop the killer by throwing cans at him.

Richard Gutierrez, 22, stabbed a security guard at a 99 cent store to death on Aug. 1, police said. Shoppers tried to stop Gutierrez by throwing canned goods at him.

Gutierrez then threatened customers who were pelting him with cans and attempted to run out of the store when he heard police sirens. He was booked into jail on homicide charges.

On July 26, a Salinas gang task force killed 30-year-old Juan Luis Acuna during a shootout here on East Market Street. Acuna was a homicide suspect.

Homicide suspect and gang member Juan Luis Acuna, 30, was killed by Salinas police officers on July 26, 2013.

Daniel Casey, 60, of Live Oak, was working as a carpenter inside a Salinas house on Osage Drive when he was shot to death. He worked for a Live Oak construction firm that was hired by the City of Salinas to renovate the city-owned house.

Three people were shot in broad daylight July 25 on Boronda Road and Calle Del Adobe. Jose Alfredo Espinoza, 42, of Salinas, died at the scene.

Espinoza and two friends had been trying to repair their car that broke down on the side of the road when multiple gunmen opened fire on them. The gunmen were last seen running through farm fields. The two surviving victims were identified as 24-year-old Jerry Garcia and 35-year-old Jorge Lopez Rodriguez.

Mayor Joe Gunter, left, and Police Chief Kelly McMillin, right, held a press conference Aug. 1 to talk about the city's surge in violence. Police said there is no way to know what motive is behind each killing over the past two weeks.

Three unrelated shootings on Aug. 4 and Aug. 5 left four people dead and five injured.

Comments

The views expressed are not those of this site, this station or its affiliated companies. By posting your comments you agree to accept our terms of use.